Polis Is Thishttp://www.hcn.org/issues/46.16/polis-is-this
My wife and I both voted for the five-year moratorium on fracking in Fort Collins, Colorado, which was subsequently, disappointingly, overturned by the Colorado court system. We have watched as this issue has evolved, and we come down on the side of Jared Polis, a Democrat whose district includes Fort Collins (“Fracking politicians,” HCN, 4/18/14). The old-fashioned definition of a politician is one who is skilled in “the art of the possible,” and we think Polis fits that definition, being clearly tuned-in to what is achievable during an off-year election and beyond.

Should the commission tasked with looking at this issue, or the Legislature, which would be tasked with implementing its recommendations, not do an adequate job of protecting the health and safety of Colorado residents, my money would be on Polis ramping up his efforts in 2016. Given the monetary power of the oil and gas industry (jobs! jobs! jobs!), this is a very serious chess game, and we have to make the right moves 100 percent of the time to achieve our goals. Polis fully grasps that, and thus has our full support.

John Thomas

Fort Collins, Colorado

]]>No publisherLetter to the editor2014/09/15 05:05:00 GMT-6ArticleThe death of the working classhttp://www.hcn.org/issues/45.12/the-death-of-the-working-class
The most unfortunate legacy of the development over the last 50-plus years of "paradise resorts" for the wealthy like Aspen, Vail, Telluride and Jackson is primarily that the middle-class and working-class folks who perform the day-to-day work that keeps those resorts running have been shut out of affordable housing by the wealthy and by conservationists who arrived in these towns early and resist any kind of change ("Paradise at a Price," HCN, 6/10/13). Both want to close the entry door behind them. Instead of damaging the hillside scenery and waterways, as mining did over 100 years ago, this unfortunate set of circumstances is going to scar people, culture and air quality via multiple long-distance commuters. The children of these commuters will not grow up and go to school with the children of those their parents are working to serve. If Jackson is not willing to work to devise affordable housing within walking distance of amenities for families with jobs in Jackson, at a minimum Jackson homeowners should be taxed to fund all-weather commuter buses to bring folks safely across the pass. Maybe they should also consider bringing the children across the pass to attend their schools, since these families deserve to be part of the community in which they work.

John Thomas Fort Collins, Colorado]]>No publisherGrowth & SustainabilityLetter to the editor2013/07/22 05:00:00 GMT-6ArticleAn uncomfortable truthhttp://www.hcn.org/issues/42.22/an-uncomfortable-truth
Jen Jackson's report describes a society that wants service industry workers and others to provide us with services we wouldn't dream of living without (HCN, 11/22/10). But when those workers' low-wage jobs don't allow them to purchase or rent "acceptable" or "conventional" housing, we shun them as neighbors. We don't want to be confronted with the uncomfortable reality that many of the jobs that support our consumer-friendly lifestyle do not pay a living wage.

No place is this more true than in a destination resort, where tourists or affluent residents usually don't want to see alternative housing. Could it be time to grab a page from the Depression playbook -- to create squatter "Boehnervilles" across the West? A lot of them would be shut down, but that would generate a lot of media coverage that would get this problem out in the open. John ThomasFort Collins, Colorado